View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Loughborough University Institutional Repository The Concept of Solidarity in Anarchist Thought by John Nightingale A Doctoral Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy Loughborough University September 2015 © John Nightingale 2015 Abstract This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by presenting an analysis of anarchist conceptions of solidarity. Whilst recent academic literature has conceptualised solidarity from a range of perspectives, anarchist interpretations have largely been marginalised or ignored. This neglect is unjustified, for thinkers of the anarchist tradition have often emphasised solidarity as a key principle, and have offered original and instructive accounts of this important but contested political concept. In a global era which has seen the role of the nation state significantly reduced, anarchism, which consists in a fundamental critique and rejection of hierarchical state-like institutions, can provide a rich source of theory on the meaning and significance of solidarity. The work consists in detailed analyses of the concepts of solidarity of four prominent anarchist thinkers: Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Murray Bookchin and Noam Chomsky. The analytic investigation is led by Michael Freeden’s methodology of ‘ideological morphology’, whereby ideologies are viewed as peculiar configurations of political concepts, which are themselves constituted by sub-conceptual idea- components. Working within this framework, the analysis seeks to ascertain the way in which each thinker attaches particular meanings to the concept of solidarity, and to locate solidarity within their wider ideological system. Subsequently, the thesis offers a representative profile of an ‘anarchist concept’ of solidarity, which is characterised by notions of universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality. Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... 1 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 4 2. Methodology: ideological morphology .................................................................... 8 3. Bakunin’s concept of solidarity ............................................................................. 34 4. Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity ........................................................................... 71 5. Bookchin’s concept of solidarity ......................................................................... 109 6. Chomsky’s concept of solidarity ......................................................................... 145 7. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 187 8. References ......................................................................................................... 207 Acknowledgements Thanks must go to Lawrence Wilde, for sowing a seed, and many, many more to Ian Fraser and Alexandre Christoyannopoulos for helping me bring it to fruition. I am grateful also to the Graduate School at Loughborough University for giving me the opportunity to conduct this research, and to the department of Politics, History and International Relations for allowing me to do so in such a lively, stimulating and, above all, friendly environment. Thanks to Ruth Kinna, whose advice and criticism have been invaluable, and to Loughborough’s Anarchism Research Group, which has introduced me to a host of interesting and provocative debates within the field. A number of academic conferences have helped me to shape and refine the ideas presented in this thesis – thanks to all who participated in relevant panels at the Alternative Futures conferences at Nottingham Trent University, the Anarchist Studies Network conference at Loughborough in September 2012, the Cultural Difference and Social Solidarity workshop at Masaryk University in Brno in September 2014, and the Ecological Challenges conference at the University of Oslo, also in September 2014. For their curiosity, enthusiasm and good humour, I am thankful to all of the students I have taught at both Loughborough and Nottingham Trent universities during the course of this project. If they have learnt from me even a fraction of that which I have from them, then I can take great satisfaction in a job well done. Thanks also to those who have been tolerant enough to share their living space with me throughout various periods over the last four years – they know who they are. My greatest debt of gratitude is, of course, to my family, without whose seemingly limitless patience, support and love this project would simply not have been possible. A special mention is reserved for Tilly, for her company (and conversation) during the final months. 1 2 No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (Donne, 2008: p. 344) 3 1. Introduction Thinkers of the anarchist tradition have frequently invoked solidarity as a key principle, for the sake of both popular struggles against oppression in the present, and the social cohesion of a non-hierarchical and egalitarian society in the future. Given this, it is curious that contemporary scholarship on solidarity (Bayertz, 1999; Crow, 2002; Brunkhorst, 2005; Stjernø, 2005; Scholz, 2008) has largely overlooked anarchist conceptions. The purpose of this thesis is to rectify this lacuna by conducting an original exploration of the ways in which anarchist thinkers have conceptualised solidarity and assessing how anarchist notions of solidarity might serve to enhance our understanding of what solidarity means. To this end, the study consists in analyses of the concept of solidarity as conceived by four anarchist thinkers: the Russian revolutionary and classical anarchist Michael Bakunin (1814- 1876); the geographer and perhaps the most influential of all anarchist theorists, Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) – also Russian; the American anarchist and social ecologist, Murray Bookchin (1921-2006); and the US linguist, philosopher, political commentator and social justice activist, Noam Chomsky (born 1928). The analysis utilises Michael Freeden’s methodology of ‘ideological morphology’, which asserts that ideologies are constituted by peculiar configurations of political concepts which are in turn made up of various sub-conceptual ‘idea-components’. Concepts are understood in relation to their specific ideational context, since they are shaped by their relationships with neighbouring concepts in their host ideology. As such, this study makes original contributions in two distinct fields. First, in exploring the nature of anarchist conceptions of solidarity, it uncovers a perspective on solidarity that afforded scant consideration in contemporary literatures on the concept. Second, in locating the concept of solidarity within anarchism’s conceptual configuration according to the premises of ideological morphology, it presents an instructive interpretation of what constitutes anarchism as an ideology. Solidarity is an important concept for social and political theorists, although it has been the subject of relative neglect since it was made prominent by Émile Durkheim in The Division of Labour in Society (1893). However, recent scholarship demonstrates an increasing interest in the concept, which, as Graham Crow argues, 4 is relevant in many areas of social life, including ‘Family and kinship relations, community life, trade union activity and the identity politics of new social movements’ (Crow, 2002: p. 1). In his study of Solidarity in Europe Steinar Stjernø identifies solidarity as ‘a key concept in two of the main political traditions within European politics – social democracy and Christian democracy’, which warrants reconsideration in an age of neoliberal individualism (Stjernø, 2005: pp. 1, 2). Sally J. Scholz argues in favour of ‘political solidarity’ as a commitment and means to the end of social justice, as an effective response to ‘injustice, oppression, or social vulnerability’ and highlights its ‘tremendous potential for modelling political and social participation in the twenty-first century’ (Scholz, 2008: pp. 189, 264). For Kurt Bayertz, ‘the concept of solidarity is … indispensable for a philosophy of morality and politics’ (Bayertz, 1999: p. 26), whilst Hauke Brunkhorst argues for a global institutionalisation of ‘democratic solidarity’ as a solution to social exclusion (Brunkhorst, 2005). Lawrence Wilde appeals to the normative goal of ‘global solidarity’ as a means to break the neoliberal stranglehold on the world economy and to establish an ethical commitment to social justice (Wilde, 2013). The importance of solidarity for political theory is not questioned. However, what constitutes solidarity itself is the subject of a debate from which anarchist voices have been largely excluded. Although Stjernø notes that ‘anarchists developed a consistent and coherent theory and practice of working-class solidarity’,